


They're Calling For Rain

by DaisukiRose



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Based on Personal Experiences, Based on a SayWeCanFly Song, Dealing with Emotions, Death, F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Teen Frank Iero, Teen Gerard Way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8643556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisukiRose/pseuds/DaisukiRose
Summary: It’s 2016,  Gerard Way reasoned with himself. He was sat on the floor of his attic, the radio on to a local rock station, boxes surrounding him and a torn and battered sketchbook in his hands.  You were over this years ago. Lindsay is going to be home any time now. This is in the past.





	

_Gerard Way, age 17, had walked down the stairs in his New Jersey home after staring moodily out the window, glaring at the rain. He’d woken up before noon without the motivation to find himself caffeine, and it had made for the start of an altogether shitty day. He was dressed as normally as possible, a faded Black Flag shirt that was probably Frank’s and a pair of girl’s cut skinny jeans. He’d get himself a cup of coffee, he decided, and head out to see Frank._

_Frank. His boyfriend since Freshman year, the whole school knew they were ‘going steady’ (is that what the cool kids said these days?) and nobody tended to fuck with them anymore, beyond calling Gerard a Morrissey reject and Frank a punk fag. But they were used to it. It didn’t matter, because Gerard had Frank, and Frank had Gerard, and together, they could conquer the world._

_So he’d go see him, he decided as he walked down the stairs at the ungodly hour that was 10:30 AM, and wake him up the proper way, with kisses and a blowjob and a hot cup of coffee. “I’m going out, Mom!” Gerard called into the living room. “Gonna go see Frank.”_

_“Tell his mother I want her soufflé recipe!” Donna Way yelled back from her place in front of the TV, still in her bathrobe. “She never gave it to me last time.”_

_He was in his car before he even thought about acknowledging her, probably just leaving her to gripe about ‘disrespectful teenagers’ and ‘Mikey will never be like that’ even though Mikey was the one sneaking out to go partying and smoke weed. Gerard was, by most standards, the better brother._

_Gerard lived far off the highway, a good 10 minute drive to the intersection, and therefore, nobody ever came down his road. Traffic was scarce, to put it mildly, so when he heard sirens, and close ones at that, he was more than a little worried. He crept up his road at 15 miles per hour, not wanting to round a corner and accidentally hit an officer even in his rush to get to his boyfriend, and that’s when he saw it._

_A beat up old silver VW hatchback, bent out of shape around the front of a blue F-150, the driver of the F-150 obviously stunned but okay, the driver of the silver hatchback…_

_No. There was only one person Gerard knew that owned a hatchback like that._

_Frank._

_He at least had the sanity to put his car in park before he jumped out, questions falling almost as rapidfire as his tears. “Is he alive?” He yelled as two officers came running up, stopping him from getting to Frank’s car. “Is he in there? Is that Frank? Is he alive?”_

_“I’m sorry, son, we’re going to have to ask you to step back,” a balding officer in his early 40’s said, a solemn look on his face. “We can’t disclose anything, this is an open investigation.”_

_“Let me get to him!” Gerard screamed as the two officers manhandled him back to his car, the officer in his 20’s picking Gerard up easily and throwing him over his shoulder, and that’s when he saw._

_Saw a familiar tuft of black hair, fallen over the bloodied face of a punk teenage boy. Eyes open, staring down, head leaned against the steering wheel, not moving. Silver lip ring glinting in a single ray of sunshine that just now had the decency to poke through the clouds. “No!” Gerard yelled, breaking down, hyperventilating and pounding on the officer’s back just as a team of firefighters lay a sheet over Frank’s body. “That’s my boyfriend, I need him, let me get to him! I need him, I need him…”_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_It’s 2016,_ Gerard Way reasoned with himself. He was sat on the floor of his attic, the radio on to a local rock station, boxes surrounding him and a torn and battered sketchbook in his hands. _You were over this years ago. Lindsay is going to be home any time now. This is in the past._

He’d found a sketchbook, the very sketchbook he’d purposefully lost and put out of memory after his Junior year of high school. The cover was plain black, the edges frayed from being thrown in backpacks and hoodie pockets, a single splotch of red pain on the cover that he’d obviously tried to chip off in the past. He was 17 when he finished the last page in the notebook, 18 when he’d packed it in a box with his other notebooks and never looked back, and 39 when he’d ultimately found it again and wound up in a heap on his attic floor. The first few pages hurt to look at even without context – incredibly realistic drawings of a punk boy eating ice cream, laughing, skateboarding, singing with his band. The punk boy had a smile that could melt Antarctica, a tattoo on his neck that he was not legally allowed to have, a lip ring that shone, even in charcoal, and a laugh that Gerard couldn’t forget. _Frank,_ He thought, that one word enveloping his consciousness. 

_It’s 2016,_ he reasoned to himself. _This happened 22 years ago, you resolved this._ He flipped past the happy drawings, ones of Frank with friends, Frank climbing that stupid walnut tree that had been next to their high school, Frank jumping on Mikey’s back and nearly knocking the lanky teen over, flipped past all that to when it had happened. It, he thought bitterly, he couldn’t even say it, not now, maybe not ever. He flipped to the first unhappy picture, a car wreck, Frank’s silver piece of junk wrapped around the front of a Ford F-150 in excruciating detail. It must have taken him forever to draw, to put that much energy towards. If you looked in the window of the graphite car, you could see a head with a flopped-over Mohawk plastered to his forehead, that head slumped forward in the seat. The driver of the F-150 had been drawn in as a dark silhouette, obviously okay, stunned but not knocked out.

Not dead.

The drawing after that was an ambulance, the doors not quite closed, the body of a punk boy drawn with a Bic pen and smeared by tears. There were EMT’s in the scene, sure, but their heads were hung, sheets placed over the back of the silver car that was wrapped around the nose of an F-150 in the background. The ground was wet, Gerard had illustrated that well, streams running down the roadway and beneath the tires of the ambulance. 

The third drawing was a grave, hurriedly drawn as if done during the funeral procession. The gravestone said, simply, “Frank Anthony Iero, October 31, 19__ to September 1, 1994. Son, Boyfriend, Angel.” This page was wet, too, but not like the last one. This one had been soaked by rain, the dampness even and the lines less smudged.

Gerard didn’t realize he was crying until a tear fell and hit the paper as he flipped though page after page of drawings of Frank’s accident, potential suicides he’d contemplated, actual suicides he’d attempted. He didn’t realize he was crying until a tear landed on a copy of an obituary, cut out of the paper and glued into the book. “Frank Anthony Iero,” it read, “Died at the age 16 on September 1, 1994. He is survived by his father and mother, Frank Iero Sr. and Linda Iero, and his boyfriend, Gerard Way, all of Bellville. Memorial service will be held at the Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Bellville on September 10, 1994.”

Fifty-two words to sum up the life of Gerard’s Frank. He’d hated that they held Frank’s memorial on his brother’s birthday. Memories crashed back on him and he curled in on himself, memories of nights spent in the back of Frank’s aunt’s truckbed, freezing their asses off to see the stars, memories of jumping through leaves at the park, memories of Frank convincing Gerard to sing for him while he played guitar, huge grins and stolen kisses, secret tattoos that Gerard ultimately helped him acquire, running from the cops, singing Danzig at the top of their lungs, terrorizing the town and making people laugh while doing so. Fifty-two words to sum up the life of the first person Gerard ever loved. Nobody was worth only fifty-two words. Whoever had written the obituary hadn’t been very eloquent, but Gerard hadn’t the state of mind to complain. 

The next page held a cutout picture of his Junior prom, the one he’d skipped, the one he’d been planning to propose to Frank at. Even if they couldn’t legally get married then, they would have known, and that’s all that mattered. That’s all that ever mattered. Mikey and Ray were in the picture, as well as their girlfriends at the time, and a few other people Gerard had been friends with that had drifted off over the years.

Gerard let out a sob, clutching the book to his chest. _Frank,_ his head repeated like a mantra. _Frank Frank Frank Frank FrankFrankFrankFRANKFRANKFRANK_

He didn’t remember standing up, but he stumbled downstairs and to the main floor of his house, making his way into the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of whiskey. He didn’t remember emptying it, but when he looked down, he was holding an empty bottle and a tear-stained sketchbook. 

He just wanted to talk to Frank one more time, spend one more day with him, but that’s a wish he could never grasp. 

“The forecast today is cloudy with a 95% chance of rain. Bring an umbrella and be careful on the roads.” The weather report played over the radio, the man’s voice happy as he read the script. It had been rain that had caused Frank to lose control on the slick roads that morning, driving to Gerard’s house to surprise him with a bouquet of roses. He’d rather not have been told about the roses. 

It didn’t matter because Frank was dead.

Gerard needed stability. He needed Lindsay, she’d be able to fix this, she always fixed everything. Gerard loved Lindsay. _Gerard loved Frank._ He grabbed his car keys, wiping away tears and stumbling to his car, very nearly ending up face-down on the pavement of his driveway. He fumbled with the lock, tears obscuring his vision and hands shaking as he tried to line up the key. He couldn’t tell you how long it took him to get the key in, but every failed attempt made him cry harder. By the time he’d opened the door and started the car, he was hiccupping and sobbing, mind clouded. He turned out onto his street, hitting a neighbour’s garbage can on his way out, but that was of no consequence when your entire world had just imploded. Repressed memories and buried feelings had sprung forth, making everything Gerard did jerky, shaky, and disquieted. He bit back a sob, banging his hands on the steering wheel as he neared the end of his street, neared the highway, neared his escape route to Lindsay and Bandit and freedom and help.

He didn’t stop at the stop sign, rushing the intersection. There was never anyone coming from the opposite way, why would here be now? He just needed Lindsay.

Bright lights and loud noise rang through his head, making him look out the passenger side window at the direction they were coming from.

The last thing Gerard saw was the front end of a blue F-150, barreling towards his silver car at 65 miles per hour. The last thing Gerard heard was the crunch of his driver side doorpanel. He was suspended in a state of shock that seemed to last an eternity, bright white flashing over his eyes before all faded to black.

_Gerard A, Way, 39, of Los Angeles, California, died Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016, in a T-bone automobile wreck. He is survived by wife Lindsay Way and daughter Bandit Way, both of Los Angeles, California. A memorial will be announced. Monroeville Crematorium & Mortuaries in Los Angeles is in charge of the arrangements._

Fifty-two words. Fifty two words to sum up the life of the man that gave so much of the world life. He was right – Fifty-two words isn’t enough to exonerate anybody’s entire life, but it would have to do.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I seem to have a thing for killing off Frank. I have nothing against him, I love him to bits, but Gerard and I are alike on an emotional level that makes writing his distress/pain/thoughts both easier and a major challenge.  
> Comments and kudos are the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins!  
> Follow me on Twitter for lame stuff sometimes @grin_reaper6  
> ~xoxodaisukirose


End file.
